lumia 900

Our very own Ashley Esqueda was out and about at the Pepcom event for CES 2012, and gets a tour of the highly anticipated Nokia Lumia 900 - it's a very beautiful phone, and she gets a sneak peek at the awesome Windows Phone device.

Nokia has added an introductory video on the Nokia Lumia 900 over at their YouTube site. The ninety-plus second video touches on all aspects of the new Windows Phone heading to AT&T. From the polycarbonate uni-body to the 4G LTE network, the Lumia 900 is definitely a head turner.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the focus was on Nokia, the Lumia 900, re-entering the US market and anything else would could think to ask. Having said that, sorry folks, no new feature announcements were revealed about the Windows Phone OS as both gentlemen outsmarted our attempts. (We're betting on Mobile World Congress next month for more info on "Tango").

The interview, all 25 minutes of it, can be seen above and we think it is quite interesting, especially as we ask about what are Microsoft's and Nokia's biggest challenges in the US, how did the Lumia 900 come to be (including the design process), what should we expect from the LTE experience and more. Clearly Microsoft is expecting Windows 8 to add another "jolt" to Windows Phone in 2012 and we couldn't agree more.

In addition, we had some more hands-on time with the Lumia 900 and folks, we're really excited about this beauty as it is quite the Windows Phone. More on that later this week in our podcast.

A big thanks to Microsoft and Nokia for extending the opportunity for this interview and iMore's Rene Ritchie for assistance.

Edit: The last few minutes got cut off, so we have a new version coming up in a little bit.

There's little doubt that day one of the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show was big for Windows Phones. I think we all were took by surprise by AT&T's announcement during their Developer's Summit and while Nokia's afternoon press event was expected, we were still very impressed with what was presented. The day ended with Microsoft giving their last CES Keynote address that reflected on the past and gave us a glimpse into the future. Here's the down and dirty highlights from day one of the 2012 CES.

AT&T 4G LTE: AT&T announced they will be offering the first 4G LTE Windows Phones in the coming months. Often described throughout the presentation as "blazingly fast", AT&T's CEO Ralph de la Vega stated that the new network will "take AT&T's Windows Phones to a new level."

Nokia Lumia 900: What might have been the best known secret of the day, Nokia officially announced the Lumia 900. The 4.3" AMOLED screened device will join the Titan II on AT&T's 4G LTE Windows Phone lineup. It will be initially offered in black and cyan with additional colors becoming available on down the line.

Steve Ballmer: Steve Ballmer likely had a pair of roller skates handy for day one of the 2012 CES. He made appearances during the AT&T Developer Summit that morning, dropped in on Nokia's afternoon presentation and delivered Microsoft's Keynote that evening. While some may have seen Microsoft's keynote as "lack luster" it did give us a glimpse at what's coming down the road, Metro. From the XBox console to the PC to our Windows Phone, Metro will be the Windows interface of choice.

All in all, day one of the 2012 CES was very promising for Windows Phones. Two very impressive devices, a promise of a faster network, and our Metro interface overtaking Microsoft's other platforms. It will be interesting to see what Day Two adds to the mix.

We'll be hitting the show floor seeking out all that is Windows Phone over the next few days and for all our 2012 CES coverage, just hit this link.

Today, Nokia announced not only the Lumia 900 but also some exclusive apps. While Nokia Drive is well known, the ESPN and CNN apps are much more new and less detailed in media coverage.

Perhaps not surprisingly, both apps are quite nice. Well designed, Metro-influenced and delivering what looks to be considerable content, the apps look to increase the value of the phone. And while we don't think an "exclusive" ESPN and CNN app suite will convert many folks, as news junkies ourselves, we're more than happy to have it on board. Furthermore, the CNN iReport feature (being able to natively use the phone to submit reports) is certainly a novel idea.

Hey, look at that...it's the just announced Lumia 900 for AT&T. While these are still considered "prototypes" (which tells you how much Nokia is rushing here) and there are only three on the premises, we were able to get a brief tour of the device.

Our first impressions of it are quite enthusiastic. The screen is simply one of the nicest we have seen on a Windows Phone with deep blacks and high contrast colors. While the device borrows heavily from the 800, it certainly looks to be its own. The size is certainly much larger than the 800 but in a good way. Of note is Nokia has thankfully redesigned the microSIM card slot as it now requires a pin to open it as opposed to the "prone to breakage" flip door on the Lumia 800.

We're not going to lie, while the specs are fairly regular for "high end" Windows Phones, the Lumia 900 is about looks and feel. And it looks (dare we say) sexy and that is something Windows Phone needs to sell. Oh and yes, it has 16GB of storage memory as you can see at 2:30 in the video.

Nokia CEO Stephen Elop sat down on the eve of the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show with Nokia Conversations to discuss the Lumia 900 and the other Lumia Windows Phones. He made no bones that Nokia is eager to become a presence in the U.S. Market.

“The Lumia 900 is designed specifically with the North American consumer in mind. The Lumia 900 is also Nokia's first 4G LTE smartphone and will take advantage of AT&T's 4G LTE network."

Elop also noted the presence of the newly released Nokia Lumia 710 that is designed for the consumers who have yet to make the transition to a smartphone. He feels the entry level Windows Phone is the perfect combination of operator and device.

There was also mention of the Lumia 710 and 800 coming to Canadian Markets and the Lumia 800 becoming available through Microsoft stores.

Elop continues to use battle front analogies with their approach to regaining North American market shares. So far the first three installments in Nokia's battle plan have been impressive and there's no telling what we'll see once that beachhead is established.

The Lumia 900 (or the "Ace" if you will) has been announced today at CES 2012, and has lived up to expectations. Not only that, but the handset has now been added to Nokia's website and has taken over the homepage to give the Windows Phone maximum exposure to incoming traffic.

Should you be interested in the features and specifications, head on over to Nokia's website for more detail.

Okay... so the Nokia Lumia 900 definitely catches your eye from a hardware aspect but the software that's coming on board is likely to turn heads as well. Being an AT&T Windows Phone you will have the customary AT&T software suite that will include AT&T U-verse Mobile to let subscribers browse the U-Verse program guide, schedule manage their DVR recordings and what shows from the comfort of your Windows Phone. The Lumia 900 will also have the following apps in tow.

Nokia Drive: This is your Nokia navigation app that provides voice-guided, turn by turn directions. You also have the ability to download only the maps you need, saving storage space.

ESPN Sports Hub: This is an exclusive to Nokia Lumia Windows Phones that gives you access to ESPN scores, videos, and news items on your favorite sports.

CNN App for Windows Phone: This news app will bring you the latest news and videos from CNN and direct access to iReport, CNN's participatory news community. Launching next month, the CNN App will be an exclusive to Nokia for 90 days.

Univision App: This is an exclusive to Nokia Lumia users in the U.S. and Puerto Rico for eighteen months. The app will deliver unique Spanish language content covering sports, news, entertainment, cooking and local content.

It was also announce a partnership with EA Sports to bring over twenty of the world's most popular games to the Windows Phone Marketplace. We first heard of this partnership back at Nokia World and the Lumia line of Windows Phones will get first crack at these titles.

While the Nokia Lumia's hardware is impressive, everyone should be pleased with the software that accompanies the device. You can catch the full press release from Nokia after the break.

It's official. Well, more official than it was prior to the presentation from Nokia. The Lumia 900 LTE is here, and it's everything we all expected. Packing a 1.4Ghz chip, 1830mAh battery, sporting a 4.3" AMOLED ClearBlack display, Carl Zeiss optics on the rear camera, it's basically an enlarged version of the 800. The added bonus (for many) is the included front-facing camera (which can be seen in the photo below, and has f2.4 aperture), and overall us Europeans are stood feeling helplessly jealous with our Titan MK I friends (thanks to the beefy HTC Titan II).

The handset will be available in black and cyan varieties initially (more colours could be added in the future), and will be available exclusively to AT&T. Apologies to those who are on other networks. Although, on a positive note, this is a sign of the carrier actually getting behind the platform and with Nokia advertising like no one's business, we should see some positive results in terms of sales. Here's hoping anyway. Oh, and some apps will be bundled, including the likes of CNN, and AT&T with a U-verse Mobile application.

A half-dozen Android phones (literally, six Android phones) and the announcement of the HTC Titan II dominated the AT&T Developer Summit this morning at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas. But Nokia CEO Stephen Elop promised that his company has phones on the way, too, and we'll see them announced at its press event this afternoon.

The Lumia 900 is all be assured, and hopefully Elop's got something else up his sleeve, too.

Back in November, our concerns about the state of Windows Phone in Canada were somewhat alleviated when we heard that Nokia would be bringing a number of Windows phones there in 2012. While details were scarce at the time, MobileSyrup says that they have confirmed that both the Lumia 710 and Lumia 900 (Ace) are packing their bags for the trek up North. No timeline has been provided, but the 710 is expected to arrive first, followed by the flagship Ace shortly after.

While Rogers is the likely carrier, TELUS and Bell are possibilities. And since we don't even know who will be carrying the Nokia handsets, we still don't know how much they will fetch in the marketplace. Despite the vagueness of it all, it's certainly reassuring to hear that Canada will be seeing some WP7 love.

Now we have confirmation that this is the case and even the version numbers. Reader Lukas E. has sent us a photo of his new Lumia 800 which he won directly from Nokia. Where it gets interesting, however, is his OS build which is pegged at 7.10.8107 (pictured above), a significant bump from 7.10.7740 which is found on a lot of devices today.

More interestingly, we found that the Nokia 900 which is expected to be announced next Monday at CES, is running a similar build: 7.10.8104. This info was gleaned from Lynx Interactive who makes various games for Windows Phone and collects device/OS information for their statistics.

The 810x branch of the OS seems to be an official interim build that many OEMS are using, including the unannounced Samsung Monument, the Samsung Focus, some HTC devices and the Lumia 710. What is not clear, of course, is if this will be released as an OS update or is just for upcoming 4G/LTE enabled phones but it does appear that this branch is getting ready to go public. The fact that a Lumia 800 is running the updated OS is a positive sign that this may be an official update. (There is an even later build, 8714, which may be Tango-proper.)

Perhaps we'll find out more at CES next week. Until then, we'll continue to see if we can find any other changes to the OS--so far, there is no Internet Sharing on Lukas's Lumia 800 and no other discenrable changes that he has noted, meaning this could new hardware preperation.

Paul Thurrott has stamped his mark on some information regarding the upcoming expenditure the software giant is set to embark on in the Sates. The details allegedly come from internal Microsoft documentation. Windows Phone has been failing when it comes to retailers and carrier stores, not just in the U.S., but on a global scale and it's a huge mountain to climb to get to a level playing field with competitor platforms. We covered the report today, which BetaNews published, that pointed to the Nokia Ace receiving "hero" status on AT&T. Not only that, but $100 million was said to be going into the marketing kitty.

Thurrott has now "corrected" information published by BetaNews, announcing that Microsoft and co. will be looking to unleash not $100 million, but $200 million marketing and promoting the platform. We're already aware that the plan for all companies involved with Windows Phone are looking to spend large sums of money, especially Nokia with CEO Elop commenting that they're "game". HTC, Samsung (among other OEMs) will also be set to increase budgeting for advertising, much like what we've witnessed across Europe with newspaper adverts and more.

Thurrott also moves on to state that retail sales staff are set to receive incentives (as part of the massive budget) for moving handsets from the shelves and into consumer hands.

"The amount of payments are $10 to $15 per handset sold, depending on the number sold, for some handset models."

This all makes sense and is pretty much what we're all expecting the companies to roll on. But remember though; Mr Thurrott is the gentleman that stated we wouldn't be getting Mango until 2012, so take this information as you see fit.

BetaNews is reporting tonight from undisclosed sources that the upcoming Nokia "Ace" aka Lumia 900 will be part of a massive advertising campaign, with a reported $100 million dollars being spent promoting the highly secretive device. It's not clear if that money will be spent equally by Microsoft, AT&T or Nokia or divided amongst the three in another fashion.

Perhaps more importantly the phone is reported to receive "hero status" from AT&T which according to BetaNews means that the carrier will "...will promote the device in its advertising, through its retail channels and direct store associates to push the device within its stores." Such a position would be the first for any Windows Phone in the US, perhaps finally giving the the beleaguered OS a shot in the limelight. If all goes well with this Nokia Ace/900 push on AT&T another source indicated that Microsoft is hoping to get carriers to "hero" another device for the 2012 holiday season.

While sources for this story remain undisclosed the information in general terms is exactly what Microsoft and more recently Nokia have essentially promised when launching here in the United States. Most recently this was confirmed when Nokia CEO Elop commented that they were "game" for stepping up their performance, especially in relation to carriers in the US. And considering how much Nokia has invested in Europe e.g. the Deadmau5 event, we imagine they have big plans here for the States.

More will be revealed of course next Monday at 6PM EST when Nokia holds their media event at CES in Las Vegas. Nokia is expected to reveal the "Ace" or Lumia 900, a device with a 4.3" "clear black" screen, 16GB of storage, 4G LTE for AT&T and a front-facing camera. We'll be their live, covering the event.

The official Three UK Twitter account was hit with the question of whether or not the carrier has any plans for the rumoured Nokia Lumia 900. As can be seen in the screen shot above, their answer to Digixav is pretty non-specific and lacks any real detail, but they do confirm that the Lumia 900 exists to an extent.

On the other hand, the Three UK Twitter moderators could well be confirming that there are no visual indication according to their resources that the carrier will be stocking the Lumia 900, and this is simply nothing at all. We do have confirmation that the Lumia 710 is on its way to the network though.

PocketNow has gotten their hands on details about the Nokia Lumia 900 (aka, Ace), which is heading to AT&T. Despite past speculation that it would ship with the version of Windows Phone known as Tango, it will indeed have version 7.5 Mango. As Nokia's flagship phone, the Lumia 900 will sport:

4.3-inch WVGA display

512MB of RAM

8MP camera

1830mAh battery

The Ace weighs in at 160 grams, just slightly more than the Lumia 800's 142 grams. This is doubtless due in part to the larger screen. Despite the greater weight, both handsets look to have the same thickness, about 12mm. PocketNow took the specs of both phones and used them to create the above comparison picture.

It's not yet known how much storage the Ace will have, but a supposed leaked spec sheet from October showed both a 16GB and 32GB option, though its veracity has been highly questioned. Based on what we know of Nokia's other handsets, there is no evidence to support the theory that they would offer multiple storage options. We should find out for sure at CES, where it is also expected that Nokia will unveil a mid-range offering, the Lumia 719.

We could be looking too much into this, or it could actually be the Lumia 900 being featured on Nokia's Pulse webpage. Looking at the above screen capture does reveal some notable differentiation when compared to the Lumia 800. The capacitive buttons are closer to the edge of the handset, it looks marginally taller, but no FFC can be spotted. We'll pass it onto you guys to decide, an interesting find nonetheless. This is -of course- running off the "modified 800" render rumour, but it could well be the "Ace".

Pocketnow have images reportedly from Microsoft-partner Christmas card and the featured item is a Nokia device with AT&T branding on board, presumably the Nokia "Ace" 900.

No other details can be discerned from the device except for a front-facing camera (upper left), which seems imperative for US markets now and for 2nd gen Windows Phones. The device is expected to feature a large 4.3" screen, AT&T LTE 4G and some other ample specs making it a decent competitor for the US and Windows Phone in general. Still, it is not clear if this device is just a revamped 800 with higher specs or truly a different device.

We have a little discussion going on amongst the WPCentral writers concerning the Windows Phone used in Microsoft's Hotmail advertisement. At first we thought it could be the HTC Titan until we noticed the Nokia apps (Drive, Maps, and Music).

We now have two schools of thought. One side of the coin has this being the Nokia Lumia 800 and the actress has small hands (hobbit hands was the description actually used). The mystery device appears to share the 800's buttons and silver strip on the back.

The other side of the coin calls for this to be a new Nokia, maybe the Lumia 900? Should the actress have average hands, the screen appears to be much larger than the Lumia 800 and the backing seems more gray than black.

So, what do you guys and gals think? Lumia 800, 900 or something else?